I agree with GP, it's cyclical. The industry always chases hot genres, and ever since Halo blew up FPSes have been all the rage. And there have been some good ones, but beyond the biggest of the biggest titles most people could care less. It's the same with JRPGs. There's just so much noise right now...all of these games look the same unless you're a genre afficionado who can tell them apart. That's why you see RPGs like Fallout 3 getting a lot of attention, because they're taking a familiar genre but doing something a little different with it. At least, different from most JRPGs that people see sitting on the shelves.
When's the last time you saw something super unique from Japan? Outside of Nintendo, you got nothing. That's why Nintendo sells so much; say what you will, but their games are truly unique. For example, Soul Calibur IV, Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Tekken 6, and Street Fighter IV are all going to be amazing fighters, but who's going to buy all of them aside from genre geeks? Also, what are they going to offer that will bring in new fans? Probably not a lot. That's Japan in a nutshell for me, giving the same game to the same fans. That's cool, but it'll only take you so far when things gets stale after a few years. Why did it take Nintendo to make a game like Super Smash Bros. Brawl? Couldn't Namco have, theoretically, done a better job with that kind of brawler since fighting games are their forte? I'm not saying replace Tekken 6 with Brawl, but why not release them alongside each other? It's this thinking outside the box that Japan isn't doing right now.